I had an interesting conference call yesterday with some of the folks at a startup company named PillDrill. They have been working on their invention for two years now and are looking to launch in 2016. They had a bunch of questions for me about being young and chronically ill – my medication habits, experiences, etc. It was fun speaking with them (in case you can’t tell I don’t mind sharing my opinion and talking about myself) and their product sounds quite intriguing. It is a 7-day pill tray that in a variety of ways alerts you and tracks your medication intake. (EDIT: All the info connects to an app where you can enter prescription info and also view your info.)

It also offers an easy way to track your symptoms. See the little cube on the right? It has different smiley faces on each side and you scan the side of the cube by passing it over the base that corresponds to how you’re feeling that day. Favorite part.

When we talked I told them about the times I’ve screwed up my medication, how that happened and what the consequences were. I also told them about how much I dislike parcelling out the pills into my pill planner once a week. I worry I’m going to screw up again and have a horrible week, plus I just emotionally hate looking at all those pill bottles at once. Their product couldn’t change that, of course but I did suggest that in their manual they suggest parcelling your pills in the morning when you’re sharp and then maybe some kind of little treat afterwards. Like a cookie. That would get me to do it at the proper time which would reduce mistakes.

We also talked about what kinds of symptoms I would keep track of. Right now it would be headaches (my dry needling doctor always wants to know) plus my daytime sleep disorder episodes (which by the way was diagnosed as idiopathic hypersomnia + parisomnias, meaning falling asleep during the day at unwanted times + nighttime terrors/hallucinations). A sister disease to narcolepsy. I am interested to see how many of the little pods I would need though. I take medications 4x time and right now I use 7 boxes, each box having 4 compartments – one compartment covers my whole day. With PillDrill will I need 28 pods? Also I keep thinking about the name “PillDrill.” It doesn’t dazzle me.

If you have thoughts regarding how you take your medications or what symptoms you would keep track of, feel free to leave a comment (there’s a “Leave A Reply” command right at the beginning of this post) and I’ll forward your opinions to PillDrill. Maybe you’ll get to help shape their product and/or marketing campaign!

That does sound like an interesting product! I wonder if it could connect to an app on your phone or computer over bluetooth so you could take/show the tracking to your doctor or print it out to take with you.